I had a very long comment that brilliantly said everything it was I was trying to say, and then the internet ate the whole damn thing, even after I copied it. This is why I hate the internet. I'll summarize as best I can.
I think Wadja is being deliberately obscure here. Yes. The whole film was doing this. Wajda traded on his audience's ignorance in order to manipulate public opinion. If everyone in the audience had been well informed about the events of Spring 1794, his film would not have worked, at least not in the way he wanted. Cf, good films like "La Terreur et la Vertu" which offers an interpretation which could be disputed, but not immediately proven wrong on a factual level by anyone who wanted to do the research or "Les mariés de l'an deux," which though intended more for entertainment than anything else, was conscientious about its use of history - any fudging was to further the plot or the comedy, not to manipulate the audience.
there is apparently a source for the Saint-Just hat-meet-fire episode after all Probably comes from a memoir, although I don't recall of the top of my head. maelicia would know. Anyway, for obvious reasons, even though memoirs are technically primary sources, you have to be careful with them. Memoirists have agendas just like everyone else, of course.
It's also really hard to find objective sources if you aren't a student or a professional historian. Less difficult in France, but still, very true and very tragic. This is a large part of the reason I translate.
One thing that really kills me, my Auntie is doing an Open University history degree, they use Citizens as their teaching text. Absolutely heinous. Back when I was applying to college, a rather prestigious liberal arts college was using PoGS as a starting point for its French Revolution course. Of course, I suppose there might be non-horrible ways to do this--such as pointing out all the book's flaws from a historical standpoint--but the course description made me rather wary. I didn't end up applying there.
It's just one of those things in history that just seem to zap through the years and reach into today. There are a lot of those, aren't there?
He's almost completely vanished from recent English language histories. I had a lot more to say about this originally, but basically it all boils down to: for once, I don't have a theory about this. It's also not entirely new. I've seen histories from all different eras which only mention Saint-Just to say that he died with Robespierre.
Giving the bothered the benefit of the doubt, I'd say for "corrupt" they might read "compromise" I think that is probably how they think about it. Which raises a lot of interesting questions: whether Robespierre was really incapable of all kinds of compromise, what do we mean by compromise, to what extent is compromise viewed as positive or negative now and in the 18th century, and what do we as individuals think?
The obvious answer as far as Robespierre is concerned is that he didn't compromise on principle. (I think it's quite likely that he did a great deal of compromising on details that didn't concern principles, just based on the knowledge I have right now, but I haven't made a study of it.) For example, his position relative to the debate on slavery went something like this: Robespierre, "Slavery is wrong and should be abolished, see Article 1 of the Declaration of Rights"; colonial lobby, "Not only must slavery be maintained, but free blacks must also be denied access to citizenship"; compromise view: "Let's maintain slavery but give free blacks civil rights"; Robespierre: "I denounce your compromise. Again, see Article 1 of the Declaration of Rights." Personally, I think this kind of refusal to compromise is laudable. Some people would say, "laudable, yes, but not practical," to which I would reply, "bullshit." But that's just me. Robespierre would be more refined about it. (Which, btw, is another thing people seem to have a problem with. They don't like Robespierre's personality type, so they take it out on his politics.)
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2010-03-11 05:36 am (UTC)I think Wadja is being deliberately obscure here.
Yes. The whole film was doing this. Wajda traded on his audience's ignorance in order to manipulate public opinion. If everyone in the audience had been well informed about the events of Spring 1794, his film would not have worked, at least not in the way he wanted. Cf, good films like "La Terreur et la Vertu" which offers an interpretation which could be disputed, but not immediately proven wrong on a factual level by anyone who wanted to do the research or "Les mariés de l'an deux," which though intended more for entertainment than anything else, was conscientious about its use of history - any fudging was to further the plot or the comedy, not to manipulate the audience.
there is apparently a source for the Saint-Just hat-meet-fire episode after all
Probably comes from a memoir, although I don't recall of the top of my head.
It's also really hard to find objective sources if you aren't a student or a professional historian.
Less difficult in France, but still, very true and very tragic. This is a large part of the reason I translate.
One thing that really kills me, my Auntie is doing an Open University history degree, they use Citizens as their teaching text.
Absolutely heinous. Back when I was applying to college, a rather prestigious liberal arts college was using PoGS as a starting point for its French Revolution course. Of course, I suppose there might be non-horrible ways to do this--such as pointing out all the book's flaws from a historical standpoint--but the course description made me rather wary. I didn't end up applying there.
It's just one of those things in history that just seem to zap through the years and reach into today.
There are a lot of those, aren't there?
He's almost completely vanished from recent English language histories.
I had a lot more to say about this originally, but basically it all boils down to: for once, I don't have a theory about this. It's also not entirely new. I've seen histories from all different eras which only mention Saint-Just to say that he died with Robespierre.
Giving the bothered the benefit of the doubt, I'd say for "corrupt" they might read "compromise"
I think that is probably how they think about it. Which raises a lot of interesting questions: whether Robespierre was really incapable of all kinds of compromise, what do we mean by compromise, to what extent is compromise viewed as positive or negative now and in the 18th century, and what do we as individuals think?
The obvious answer as far as Robespierre is concerned is that he didn't compromise on principle. (I think it's quite likely that he did a great deal of compromising on details that didn't concern principles, just based on the knowledge I have right now, but I haven't made a study of it.) For example, his position relative to the debate on slavery went something like this: Robespierre, "Slavery is wrong and should be abolished, see Article 1 of the Declaration of Rights"; colonial lobby, "Not only must slavery be maintained, but free blacks must also be denied access to citizenship"; compromise view: "Let's maintain slavery but give free blacks civil rights"; Robespierre: "I denounce your compromise. Again, see Article 1 of the Declaration of Rights." Personally, I think this kind of refusal to compromise is laudable. Some people would say, "laudable, yes, but not practical," to which I would reply, "bullshit." But that's just me. Robespierre would be more refined about it. (Which, btw, is another thing people seem to have a problem with. They don't like Robespierre's personality type, so they take it out on his politics.)